The first Hualong One reactor at Unit 1 of the Taipingling nuclear power plant in Guangdong province has entered commercial operation. Managed by China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN), the unit is now fully operational and can meet the annual power needs of around one million residents in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
“Unit 1 of the project has completed all performance tests and a 168-hour continuous full-load operation assessment, and currently all parameters are normal and stable, with the unit in good condition,” said Zhang Guoqiang, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairperson of CGN Huizhou Nuclear Power Co. Drawing on experience from earlier projects, there have been 26 major design upgrades to Unit 1, and more than 8,300 practical improvements have been adopted, according to Zhang.
CGN said the unit has achieved key technological breakthroughs through independent innovation. This included the use of a digital handover 3.0 system for the first time, which allowed the physical plant and digital power station to be completed and delivered together, greatly improving smart nuclear power management.
The Greater Bay Area (GBA) has seen a sustained surge in demand for stable and clean energy. In 2025, Guangdong province’s total electricity consumption reached 958.97 TWh, a 4.93% year-on-year increase, ranking first in China. “The commissioning of this unit comes at an ideal time, providing stable base-load power to support high-quality development across the GBA,” said Wang Wei, dean of the Sino-French Institute of Nuclear Technology at Sun Yat-sen University.
The Taipingling project is planned to house a total of six Hualong One units. Once all six are completed, the plant is expected to generate more than 55 TWh a year. This will be equivalent to reducing standard coal consumption by around 16.65m tonnes and cutting carbon dioxide emissions by about 50.82m tonnes annually.
Taipingling 1 received an operating licence from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment in December 2025 and following approval from the National Nuclear Safety Administration, 177 fuel assemblies were loaded into the reactor core. The unit achieved criticality and was connected to the grid in February.
Construction of the second phase of the Taipingling plant – units 3&4 – was approved by China’s State Council in December 2023, and construction of unit 3 began in June 2025. Construction work is progressing steadily and unit 2 of Phase I will undergo fuel loading in the near future. At unit 3 of Phase II, construction of the main building is underway and preparatory work for Phase III is beginning.
CGN now has 29 nuclear units in operation with a total capacity of 33.04 GWe. The company also has 19 units currently under construction, 17 of which utilise the Hualong One technology.
